And just like that, David Ellison is in the driver’s seat.
The newly minted executive leadership team at Skydance, led by chairman and CEO Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz, held an on-the-record press gaggle at the Paramount lot in Hollywood, hours after their hard-fought acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery officially closed.
Both in jeans and black blazers, Ellison and Kreiz fielded questions from the national press for nearly 30 minutes on the lot’s Stage 3. The event kicked off with a high-octane trailer showcasing the staggering amount of IP Skydance now owns — from Batman to “Game of Thrones,” the Star Trek universe to “Scream.”
Present for the event were RedBird Capital founder and Skydance board member Gerry Cardinale; Skydance president Andy Gordon; chief legal officer and global president Makan Delrahim; motion picture group co-chairs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein; chief content officer Casey Bloys; DC Studios co-chair Peter Safran; Skydance CMO Rebecca Mall; DTC exec JB Perrette and many more. Here’s what Variety learned on the ground.
Real Estate
Having acquired a jewel like the Warner Bros. lot, along with the historic Paramount spread, questions turned to where, exactly, Ellison and Kreiz will lay their briefcases.
“We absolutely will keep both lots, and from that standpoint, you’ll probably see us organize film on one, television and streaming on another,” Ellison said. “We’ll go back and forth, as well as to the east coast as required and to our Santa Monica offices for animation.”
We’d venture to guess that Burbank’s Warner lot, where founder Jack Warner’s rose bushes still bloom, will be the home for feature films. No final decisions, of course, have been made.
The Chief Split
How will Ellison and Kreiz handle individual duties? The former Mattel CEO addressed their respective workloads.
“All the business units report to both of us, and there will be natural delineation between us in terms of our respective experience and concentration, which we believe are highly complementary,” said Kreiz. “David will focus on creative technology, long-term strategy — especially as it relates to the creative part of the business. I will focus more on the operations and the day-to-day management of the business, including integration, particularly the first phase. But it’s important to say that we work closely together. It’s not that David will not be very involved in integration and key operational decisions, or that I will not be involved in creative matters.”
The Trump of It All
A tense moment came as a reporter grilled Ellison on the company’s ties to President Trump. The journalist referenced an early comment from Ellison that he’d had “great conversations with Donald Trump about CNN.”
Pressed for the contents of those talks about the cable news giant he just acquired, Ellison said, “For absolute clarity, we have not talked to any political leader of any party about news, other than to say that we want to be in the truth business and we want to be in the trust business, and we believe in complete editorial independence.” A rep asked the mogul to provide more context on why he’s spent months traveling to D.C.
“Makan and I started working on a federal [tax incentive for production] in October of last year. Paramount’s domestic production level is about 5%. These jobs are being shipped overseas. Almost no filming happens here in California, which is the birthplace of the business. That’s something we want to change,” Ellison said. “It was the late Senator Lindsey Graham that shepherded that endeavor. We had multiple meetings with the president and Senator Graham, which is really what got the president to effectively say, ‘Yes, I see this, and yes, I want to support this.’ A federal rebate can only get done bipartisan.”
Skydance Film: Producing 30 Movies a Year Will be a Delicate Dance
Ellison and Kreiz explained that new motion picture chiefs Goldberg and Greenstein will be responsible for “choreographing” the release schedules for the combined Warner Bros. and Paramount film slate, which boasts 35 movies in its first year. With one movie released every 11 days, and six of those dates overlapping with other titles, how can the studios avoid cannibalizing each other at the box office?
“One of the things we’re not doing is pulling back on creative resources. We’re not pulling back on marketing resources to make sure that we can ensure that all of those films are released properly with the attention that they deserve,” Ellison said. “Dana and Josh will manage the schedule appropriately to make sure that we maximize profitability and maximize the opportunity for every single story we tell.”
It all comes down to coordination, Kreiz chimed in. “The plan is to keep the studios independent creatively. And then we will choreograph the release schedule to optimize by genre, by audience demographic to achieve the best for the company as a whole.”
To the point about keeping the studios’ individual identities intact, the Warner Bros. and Paramount logos will be the first audiences see at the beginning of each studio’s respective films — with “A Skydance Company” billed below.
“When you put the names together, it felt like you were diminishing that legacy,” Ellison said, unpacking their thought process. “We deeply respect and love these brands, and this felt like a way to build something new while honoring the incredible legacy that we are fortunate to be stewards of.”
Ellison and Kreiz emphasized that they’re equally invested in spending on original films as in leveraging that gargantuan stable of IP.
“We are going to make a completely diverse slate,” Ellison said, pointing to the success of Warner Bros.’ “Sinners” as an example. (The $90 million blockbuster from filmmaker Ryan Coogler was his favorite movie of 2025, he professed.) “You absolutely will see us tell original stories, continue our franchises, and produce across all genres.”
Bearing that in mind, when is “Barbie 2” a go? “It’s too early to talk about that,” Kreiz said.
Cord cutting?
Skydance has no plans to divest any cable networks or merge its three TV studios — at least not yet.
Kreiz said the decision to keep Warner Bros. TV, CBS Studios and Paramount TV Studios as separate entities with their own leaders (all reporting to George Cheeks, the newly appointed Skydance TV co-chair and chief content officer) is all “about scale. We’re not looking to reduce output production.”
Warner Bros. TV boasts more than 80 original series, while CBS Studios produces close to 60 series and Paramount TV Studios has a hefty lineup as well. Kreiz said he didn’t think the studios would compete with each other in the same way they had in going after projects — but at the same time, he added, “to create quality content, that you attract the right talent, that you can actually shepherd these projects properly, you need to keep certain creative parts independent and have them run and operate semi-autonomously. In the sense that the company is still one platform, we will coordinate and align and not compete directly.”
As for the approximately 50 cable networks that Skydance will now operate — combining Warner Bros. Discovery U.S. networks and Paramount’s media networks under Channing Dungey (who reports to Cheeks), Kreiz said keeping that hefty roster was also about achieving “economic scale.” Most of those networks aren’t in the active programming business, but they still secure license fees that are important revenue drivers for the company’s bottom line.
“The number one priority for the company is to establish Skydance as a content engine, a leading content engine in the world, and this is really the ethos of what this company is about,” Kreiz said. “The investment thesis is about increasing output and establishing the company as a linear content engine. When you do that, you can then drive growth in the digital business. You can continue to optimize your linear channels around the world, which is a large business.”